Tuscaloosa Circuit Court Judge Daniel Pruet denied Darius Miles’ defense attorneys’ motion to grant immunity on Thursday. If successful, the motion would have prevented the case from going to trial.
If Miles, a former Crimson Tide basketball player, continues to plead not guilty, he will be tried for capital murder after his counsel unsuccessfully argued that he should be immune from the charge on the grounds that he acted in self-defense.
A copy of Pruet’s ruling obtained by The Crimson White said that Miles fell short of making his case by “preponderance of the evidence.”
“The Defendant failed to establish that he reasonably believed that anyone inside the Jeep was using or about to use deadly physical force or that they were committing or about to commit Assault in the 1st Degree or Assault in the 2nd Degree,” the ruling stated.
As previously stated in earlier hearings, the Jan. 15 shooting death of 23-year-old mother Jamea Harris allegedly occurred after an argument broke out between members of two parties that included Harris; her boyfriend, Cedric Johnson; Harris’ cousin Asia Humphrey; Miles; and his friend, Michael Davis.
Miles later allegedly asked his teammate, forward Brandon Miller, for Miles’ own gun before handing the weapon to Davis. Davis is accused of firing the gun into a car Harris was sitting in, killing her.
The ruling comes after another unsuccessful motion by the defense in May in which it requested bond for the second time for Miles using an argument of self-defense.
Miller, Davis and Miles were also recently named as defendants in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Harris’ mother.
